


For Sharp-Eyed Lovers

by havisham



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-10-22 10:21:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I cannot have any more dead lovers,” she says, looking at him directly.<br/>“I will try not to die,” he replies, amused.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Sharp-Eyed Lovers

By the time she _knows_ , it is already too late. They had already said their farewells, stiff and unresponsive, with only the barest of courtesies. She does not want to mind, when his eyes move away from hers, to her little sisters, to her father, to her mother. She averts her eyes entirely when he says goodbye to his mother. It is another place where she should not intrude.

After all, Matthew does not _belong_ to her, and perhaps now he never will.

No. She will not allow herself to become cold and sad. To become _more_ cold and sad. There is no time to give herself over to dark reflection. Not in this new world of WAR, all in capitals and clanging on one’s doorstep and changing everything. 

(Well, not _everything_ , and she thinks wryly of her own unmarried state.)

Sybil decides, quite on her own, that she must become a nurse. Secretly, Mary applauds her sister in this bold choice. As for Edith...

“I do not consider her.” She says to herself, her hands clenching in her white kid gloves. That Edith should take such an elderly lover was embarrassment enough, but to be so wrecked on losing him! Mary’s face remains serenely impassive as she watches her sister talk to her father. Perhaps sensing his elder daughter’s scrutiny, Lord Grantham turns to her and lifts up an eyebrow. But she pays him no mind. 

Edith will have to be watched, ever after. (And never forgiven? No, and never forgiven.)

The train is puffing away, it is ready to leave as the conductor calls, “All aboard! All aboard!” 

There's a panic, as there always is, a panic for things forgotten, of things left behind. But almost as soon as it starts, it ends. All the passengers are safe in their compartments, the luggage stowed away, and the crew intent on their grand destination. To London, to London, then to war, to war.

It must be an irresistible lure, for some.

She has this wildly romantic notion that if she were to wait here, amidst the steam and the drifting onlookers, if she just waits, he will come again, emerge whole from the steam and fog. And it would be all right then, that they would be all right again. (They have never been all right, never, she wonders how it would feel like to be not completely at odds with him. And with herself, over him.)

With some wistfulness, she wonders if she would let him kiss her then, in front of all these people, in this public place. Here. 

Her reputation is spotted enough without putting yet another stain upon it. But what a thing to do! Oh, if there is to be a stain, let it be a brilliant scarlet gash, a thing that startles and arrests. A thing that takes one's breathe away, quite.

(She has become a complete rebel without even realizing it.)

But still, he does not come.

She has been left behind, unwillingly desolate. 

* * *

The goodbyes, as it turns out, were premature. He does come back to Downton Abbey. 

(Not to _her_ , but to the establishment. She must remember. She must not forget.)

He comes back a changed man, uniformed and light-hearted, a handsome example of the best Britain has to offer. It is odd to think of Cousin Matthew as _handsome_ , but of course he is, thinned out and hale, all military-issued roughness brushed away, for now. 

The softness of his features have receded somewhat, giving him an angular beauty that had not been so apparent before. His eyes are very bright, but then again, they always were.

“A handsome hawk,” Sybil offers at dinner time, and everyone politely titters and wonders if at least one Crawley sister could not snag the Crawley heir. She laughs along with everyone else, but he is quiet. He does not look at her, except when he is forced to, when she is speaking.

She makes it her duty to speak often and with as much sparkling wit as she can muster.

“Mary,” says the Dowager, with a lift of her pince-nez, “You seem quite recovered.” 

And laughingly, she agrees, her eyes trained on him the whole time. He does not look away, not once. He is quite rude to his seat-mate in that way. 

But as the ladies withdrew, she finds herself being drawn in by her mother and Cousin Violet, into their cabal of three. “You must try move on, dearest,” her mother says, her eyes filled with concern. “No Crawley in her right mind would ever throw herself at someone's head like that,” hisses the Dowager, a hint of warning in her voice. And pity too. 

So it is with a lingering sense of shame, that she keeps to her corner of the parlor when the gentlemen return. Her absence is felt, but not commented upon. It is a dull evening, all the conversation is devoted to talk of war and politics – which she is, of course, conversant in. She has pored over the papers with Sybil, she has read the rather more grim reports from the front, flinched from her father's desk. What she knows of the war, she keeps, along with the suspicion that everything is much worse than it seems.

Mary is determined to make an early night of it. “Beauty sleep,” she says brightly. A guest, a friend of Matthew's, guffaws and blurts out that she does not need it. She stuns the poor man with her most dazzling smile, before drifting away.

It is long before the hum of the house lessen and becomes only a quiet murmur. 

It sleeps, at last. 

It would be an incredible risk, leaving her room now. If nothing else, past experience should be enough to discourage her. But... 

No one is in the halls tonight, and this time there is no little scullery maid to mark her passage. All it takes is a light knock on Matthew's door, and she is pulled into the light and heat. 

“It is so hard to tell with you,” he says quietly, his hands loosening her hair so it spills down her shoulders. 

“Really? I thought I was extremely unsubtle tonight. Mother and Grandmother even remarked upon it.” 

Their first kiss lingers, on and on. He pulls away, ignoring her little cry of frustration. He is almost breathless when he says, “I must be very dull not to have caught it.” She caresses his check, feels the stubble against her fingers, his sunburned skin.

Yes, she agrees. _Very dull.  
_

 

* * *  
Later, as they lie together on his bed, she turns to him. He is playing with her fingers and her hand, measuring them against his own. Joined at last, he says sleepily. A good fit, she admits. But that is not what she wants to say.

“I cannot have anymore dead lovers,” she says, looking at him directly.

“I will try not to die,” he replies, amused.

What she means is this: come back, come back to me, _whole or broken_ , just come back.

She cannot say it. 

(Not yet.)

But if she grips him hard enough...

Her wish digs into his flesh, and _it_ cannot ever come out.


End file.
